Synthesis,antiviral activity,and 3D-QSAR study of novel chalcone derivatives containing malonate and pyridine moieties

Several novel chalcone derivatives containing malonate and pyridine moieties were synthesized, and their structures were confirmed by ¹H nuclear magnetic resonance, ¹³C nuclear magnetic resonance, ¹⁹F nuclear magnetic resonance, infrared, and elemental analyses. Antiviral bioassays revealed that most of the compounds exhibited good antiviral activity against cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) at 500 μg/mL. In particular, compounds 5l and 5n showed significant curative activities against CMV in vivo with 50% effective concentration (EC₅₀) values of 186.2 and 211.5 μg/mL, respectively; these values are even better than that of ningnanmycin (330.5 μg/mL). A 3D quantitative structure–activity relationship study was carried out using the comparative molecular field analysis technique based on curative activities against CMV. Results revealed good predictive ability with cross-validated q² and non-cross-validated r² values of 0.517 and 0.990, respectively.